The Inevtiable Demise
by IrishLegion
Summary: The world is at war and the invasion has started. However Chase is living in a top notch city with a top notch defense system, but when the city loses power Chase finds himself alone in a world of chaos he never thought possible. CoWriter RogueCanadian
1. The Invasion

"CHASE! For the last time, GET UP! You said you would finally help out!" Chase slumped out of bed deciding to finally silence his mother. He had said he was going to help out, but he didn't think his mother would actually hold him to it. He joined his mother and sister out in the living room for a quick bite before he was forced to do some chores. The TV flicked on as Chase's mom turned on the news. She always did like to check up on things. Ever since Chase's dad had left for the war she always tried to find out any details about it that she could.

"Hey Mom! They say that another city was taken. This one isn't that far from here." said Chase's Sister Amber. "It's a shame that so few cities would listen to our Mayor. After all he made such a wonderful defense system." Once the war had started and cities started falling the city leaders proposed a defense system so elaborate that the city was pretty much cut off from the rest of the world. The "brilliant" plan for the defense system was actually a really simple idea. By using the latest technology from the military themselves, a large dome was projected around the entire city. The only complicated part was keeping it running, because it took a lot of power to run. Luckily the city had enough power in reserve, not accounting for the power being generated, to run the town and defenses for days.

"Hey Chase now that your awake can you finally take these letters to the post office. I'm way to busy to do it and I think it's a little too far of a walk for your little sister. Remember the post office was recently moved towards the outskirts of the city!" Chase's mom was barely able to finish before Chase snatched up the mail and took off. He had forgotten that the post office was moved so it was a good thing he caught that last tid-bit of information. Since bringing things in and out of the city was so hard now, the post office was moved towards the outskirts of the city. This way mail carriers didn't have to drive as far when they left. Gas was also a material that was scarce in the city. It was stocked and reserved for emergency vehicles and mail trucks.

Chase made it to the post office quick and dropped off the letters. It wasn't far seeing he was a fast walker due to his height. Chase was pretty tall for being 15. He was about five foot eleven. He was lanky, skinny, and had short dark brown hair. He decided that he would take the "scenic route" home to try and prolong getting any more chores to do. He walked along the city limits just enjoying the walk and watching busy people walk to and from home. Something screwy was going on though. Every so often the lights would flicker or the radio would cut out. Chase didn't think much of it because his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking of his father and the war. He never did finish that walk.

Chase made it halfway home when power shut off completely. The reserve energy kicked on, and once again Chase thought nothing of it. Every once in a while the power plant workers would shut down for a special occasion, whether it was a holiday or the workers felt over worked. However Chase did notice something odd. It felt like the ground was shaking. And then, right after, Chase noticed the shaking was growing larger. Nostalgia struck Chase as he felt something familiar, something that he hadn't felt in a while. Suddenly it struck him. It was the wind. He jolted around to see that power for the barrier was completely cut. Almost on cue all power for the city was gone. The only city defenses left were all automatic and ran on electricity. So basically, there was no protection.

Chase started to panic. He started sprinting for home. He didn't make it far when a sickening sound roared through the town. It was the sound of gun and cannon fire. The shaking that happened earlier wasn't an earthquake, but the marching of a vast army. Buildings erupted in fire and people ran for their lives. Chase did the only thing he could think of, he ran out of the city. He darted as far away from the oncoming army. He thought that he, and the other citizens who had did the same, might have a chance. That is until he reached the top of the nearby hills. What he looked down on was the worst sight he had ever seen. This wasn't a simple attack, it was an invasion. He had no where to go. The whole city was surrounded. Enemy lines were closing the gap between themselves and Chase fast. Chase fell to his knees in shock and despair.

Chase had no where else to go, no where else to hide. That's all he wanted to do, was to hide from the war, like he had been doing since the very start. Just somewhere he could be safe and avoid a cruel death. It was too late. The charging invaders were now only yards away. Chase sat there stunned and helpless. Just somewhere to hide, that's all he asked for. A sharp pain surged through his body and everything went dark. His body lay there motionless as the invasion continued.

It didn't take long for Chase to wake up, although he wished he hadn't. He was still in the same spot as he was when the army was stampeding towards him. He was appalled that he was even breathing. He heard nothing but the wind now. Everything was quiet and motionless in the charred remains of his once loved city. He walked towards the city to see if he could possibly find a survivor, then he could find out what had happened to the rest of the innocent. Even the worst of armies usually didn't kill women and children. He walked through the destroyed city for about 5 minutes before he heard the voice of a young women and her kid. Chase was relieved at the sight of other survivors. He walked towards the women trying to get her attention. But nothing seemed to get through to her.

"HEY! I really need to talk to you!" The women turned her back towards him. This frustrated him. He reached out to grab her shoulder but something was horribly wrong. His hand phased through the young women like he was reaching through smoke. Chase fell back in fear. He got up and reached out for the women again, and just like last time his hand slipped through like nothing was there. 

"Ahhh! So we have another!" Chase almost screamed at the sound of another voice, let alone one of a male. He did circles trying to find the source of the voice.  
"HEY! Up here! It's been a while since I saw another person enter this place. By the look on your face I can tell that you have no idea what's going on, or even what this place IS." Chase could see that the guy was sitting on the roof top of what used to be his own home.  
"So where is this place anyway? Why can't I touch or talk to anybody? How did I even get here? And how..."  
"HEY! One question at a time! Jeez! This place doesn't exactly have a name. We're not even sure if it's a place more than a state of being. Including you there are 12 of us here now. It would have been 14 but two of us disappeared. Right now nobody can see, hear, or even touch you. As to how you got here who knows. None of us know exactly how we got here, just that we all had our reasons."  
"And what was your reason?"  
"Me? I wanted to end this war."

"Well you messed up your timing!"

"Messed up my timing? Are you kidding? I was right on time! How do you think the power got cut?"


	2. The Ghost

Chase couldn't believe his ears. He couldn't believe his eyes. He even questioned the rest of his senses. Was this really happening? Could his beloved city really be destroyed? No, of course not! This was just a bad dream, most likely due to the result of watching too many war and sci-fi movies. He looked at the figure of the man sitting on his house and couldn't help but smirk. He didn't know HOW he thought up of such a weird story or such a unique character. Unique wasn't quite the word for it. The guy was wearing dark blue jeans and a hooded black jacket. The jacket was all black with a very detailed, complicated, silver design running down the sleeves and chest. The hood was drawn over the guy's face which kind of annoyed Chase. If he was going to dream some crazy story he wanted to at least know what he dreamed of. It didn't take long for Chase to realize that he wasn't dreaming.

The guy turned his covered face towards Chase and jumped down. He slowly walked up to Chase and hit him in the gut. He doubled over in pain. The man just laughed and jumped back up to his perch on the house. Chase stumbled back up and gasped for air. This was real pain… that hurt a real lot.

"By the look of horror and pain on your face I can tell that you aren't here to help us take down this futile resistance. So let me guess, you just happened to stumble here as we took down your city."

Chase was still in pain but he managed to gasp out a simple word for the time being. "How?"

Chase could sense that the guy was smirking underneath the black hood. "In this state nobody can see, hear, touch, well hell! You don't even exist to anybody but us. Therefore you can not interact with anybody, or anything. However we have come into the knowledge of being able to alter the state of ourselves and objects to switch between the two states of existence. So we literally walked right in and destroyed the power generators and reserves! Our commander isn't just the commander of the 10 here, but the commander of the 'invaders' as you people like to call them. So he was easily able to get his troops here and wait. Got it?"

The fact that this guy freely talked about the destruction of his city so casually, like it was toppling a house of cards, was enough to get Chase's blood boiling. He was so infuriated that he felt like something needed to be lost, almost like if he broke enough stuff that it might compensate for all that he had lost. He looked around to see a half broken mirror about 3 feet in height propped against the remains of a building. He swung and kicked at it rapidly getting angrier as each attack phased through it, like he was attacking fog. He let out a scream and collapsed to his knees. This, he thought, was a fate worse than death. Having to watch people suffer and having no power to do anything about it was depressing, and infuriating at the same time.

Chase sat there as helpless as he was in the hills before the stampeding invaders. He was nothing, a mere ghost in a world of suffering people. The others, they learned and developed, evolved, past this stage. So, why couldn't he? Chase was sick of being helpless. Of being beaten up, insulted, and having to sit the sidelines as people he cared about were harmed and destroyed. He was sick of being this ghost that he now fully became. He had to find a way to escape this hell.

He looked around to see the hell that these "evolved ghosts" had created. Debris littered the streets and papers blew across the sidewalks. One flew towards him and Chase, out of pure instinct, knocked away the newspaper fluttering in the wind. It took a while but what Chase had just done finally clicked with him. He had pushed away that newspaper. He didn't know how he did it but he knew that he would not have to remain a ghost for long. He looked up at his old house but the guy was gone. In his rage and desperation the guy must have left, thinking that Chase was nothing more than a distraction.

Chase ran back to the paper that was still flapping in the wind. Time after time again he tried to get a hold of the paper but he couldn't do anything more than to briefly ruffle the pages. He was getting a hold of himself. He knew that if he got a hold of the power that that guy had spoken of, then he knew that he could at least help protect people from the invaders. But for now, he remained a ghost, in the midst of a world of destruction that surrounded him.


	3. Phantom Nights

The sun was setting on what Chase thought would be a never ending day. That's when Chase learned the price for his ignorance. Unable to control his ability to feel, virtually anything that provided warmth, nights got cold. During the day he learned that he caught a feel of sunlight every once in a while to keep him warm, however at night there was no sunlight, no glimpses of warmth, only the occasional feel of the cool winds of night.

Chase decided that he would camp out in what was left of his room. This way he was blocked off from any wind that happened to blow by. He had not even thought, about what he would do at night. He was too busy poking newspapers to even remember that he would need to find food and shelter. Chase spent what felt like an eternity just trying to get a hold of the papers. The farthest he got was the ability to pick it up for around 4 seconds, before phasing through his hands and floating back to the ground. The more Chase accepted that everything that had happened actually happened, the better he got at moving objects. He had to accept that he was no longer living in the realm of flesh, but in a place where only the knowledgeable can even exist.

Chase was desperately hungry the next day. He hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night, so in between his "naps" he would sit awake and alert, as he distanced himself from his ghostly status. It wasn't hard for Chase to abandon his ties to the past. If he had a choice he would rather forget everything. He had a hard time thinking about his mother and sister, not knowing where they were or if they were all right. So abandoning his past and old life styles wasn't as hard a task as it should. The more he moved on with his life and stopped thinking of his now dark past, the better his control of switching the state of objects became.

By noon of the next day he had managed to gain the ability to pick up objects whenever he wanted. He could not, however, bring those objects completely over to, what Chase had eventually started calling, Tottous. He couldn't help himself but make a name for this place. And the name itself being a combination of, total and oust, wasn't exactly creative, as the meaning of the words was "complete removal", which is exactly what had happened to him.

That night Chase had decided to, finally, get some rest. However other plans had already been made for him. He had decided to return to his room that night, for the thought of being somewhere recognizable in the wasteland city was almost soothing. He tiredly staggered through the walls of his house until he made it into the living room. The nostalgia of seeing tattered photos was killing him on the inside. He walked up to a small photo of his family and removed it from its smashed frame. Tears streamed down his face and splashed against the photo with his mom, sister, dad, and himself staring back at him. He stuffed the picture in his pocket and walked through the final wall into his room.

The sadness that had overwhelmed him was replaced at once with a mixture of surprise and hatred, for standing in a room was the man in the black and silver jacket, with his hood still drawn.

"So you managed to get a hold on some food. I'm impressed, you're learning faster than I thought. So how you holding up? Sad? Enraged? Lonely?" the man snickered as he approached Chase. The guy was taunting Chase, as if he was a high school bully picking a fight. He walked up to chase and shoved him out one of the outer walls pushing him outside. Chase stumbled out into the night and took a few steps away from the man emerging from the house. He was still walking forward until something caught his eye. He stooped down and picked up the picture of Chase's family that had finally phased through his pocket. The guy looked at the photo and took a step back.

In a shaky voice the guy spluttered out "Y-you! T-th-this is YOU in the picture?!? It can't be!" The guy stumbled back in what Chase could only think of to be disbelief.

However this encounter was cut short. Chase had suddenly heard the intense sound of what he thought was a helicopter. He shot a look up to see that the chopper had already made it to the city and lowered down to ground level a few blocks away. The man was still staring at the photo in amazement so Chase took the opportunity to make a run for it. Chase darted for the chopper, to see what was going on and to also distance himself from the now stammering man. He ran straight through debris and buildings until he made it to the helicopter. Chase was awestruck to see the mayor staggering out of the nearby building with an armful of files.

The mayor walked over to the helicopter, clearly in pain. Chase ran over and climbed aboard the chopper just as the mayor dumped the files in and climbed in himself. With a quick nod to the pilot the chopper started to lift up. Chase looked back to see the guy standing atop the nearest house, hood down, staring at Chase with through cold blue gray eyes. He guessed the guy was around sixteen and it appeared to Chase that he had dark blond hair.

The chopper was finally pulling away from the city, high in the air. The mayor sat down and addressed another man Chase did not recognize. He picked up a file and tossed it to the guy. He was an older man, probably in his forties, with black hair that was slightly graying.

"So this is the file on those attacks?" said the guy.

"Yes, this is the federal investigation that was carried out on all the attacks on previously fallen towns and cities. All fallen cities have reported that their defense systems have just suddenly 'shut off'. We have investigated many events like these, and the one that occurred in my own town, and have come up with nothing. The only things we have to go off are witnesses talking of disappearing objects and things moving on their own."

" So these are the contents of the investigation? All of this!" said the guy gesturing to the massive pile of folders on the ground.

"Yes. These are the contents of the federal investigation, codename 'Phantom Nights'."


End file.
